Misfire

We started the morning at the firing range but this time from a much further distance. We've been shooting from 7 yards but moved to 25 yards today. This doesn't sound like much until you try to hold a piece of metal perfectly still in 35 degree weather. The 10-point box inside the human figure target is barely visible from this far away. To make it even harder, there was a time limit on each round of shooting.

The targets were turned sideways so that we could not see the front. Then when the target turned to face us, we had 12 seconds to draw our guns from a fastened holster and fire three shots. Needless to say, my accuracy was not nearly as good as it was during the first few days but I ended up doing pretty well. We ran through a practice qualification shoot which is a series of timed shoots from different distances. A perfect score is 250 and the minimum qualification is 210. I scored a 232 which was in the top ten of my class.

The title of this blog entry has nothing to do with shooting, however. Instead, the 'misfire' occurred during our afternoon defensive fighting class. We were practicing ground fighting techniques (how to fend off a standing attacker from the ground). One of the drills was to show how a person face down on the floor can get up while an attacker is on his back. During my turn (on the bottom) with a 210 pound classmate on my back, I strained hard to get up and involuntarily let out a loud fart. The guy on top of me immediately jumped off while the rest of the class burst into laughter. Luckily, I wasn't the only person to experience this kind of 'misfire' during the session.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the day we've all been dreading: OC Day. OC is short for Oleoresin Capsicum (law enforcement grade pepper spray). My classmates and I will take turns being sprayed in the face and then proceed through a series of events including fighting, yelling commands, handcuffing, and maintaining proper radio contact. I wasn't worried about this too much until tonight when my wife asked me to cut up half an onion for some chili she was cooking. After a few minutes of chopping the onion, tears were rolling down my cheeks from the intense burning. This may be a bad omen of the pain to come.